The National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) has praised Northern youths under the banner of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) for suspending the quit notice slammed on Igbos to vacate the region before October 1, 2017.
Speaking to DAILY POST, Comrade Muritala Mohammed, President of NYCN hailed Arewa youths for listening to appeals made by the Council and other relevant stakeholders.
He maintained that irrespective of the quit notices and counter quit notices traded among youths from various parts of the country, NYCN believes and remains committed to the unity of Nigeria.
While urging the youths of other ethnic nationalities to toe the path of peace and reciprocate the gesture of Arewa youths, Mohammed reaffirmed the constitutional and natural right of every Nigerian to reside in any part of the country as a free citizen.
Also speaking, the National Youth Ambassador for Peace and Change, Vincent Ubani, traced the origin of quit notice on Igbos to the effort by the Arewa Youths to checkmate the perceived excess of the South-Easterners in their clamour for more power and control over their resources.
He, therefore, urged “the federal government to take into consideration the clamour for restructuring and exercise concerted efforts towards that direction in order to forestall events that could lead to the reactivation of the vacation order.”
Meanwhile, MURIC in a statement signed by its President Professor Ishaq Akintola, appealed to the various separatist groups to eschew hate speech and abuses.
He said: “We therefore caution against extreme positions on both sides in the interest of peace. Perceived imbalance can only be addressed gradually and methodically and not in a fire-brigade manner otherwise it will be counter-productive.
“On a last note, we appeal to the various separatist groups to eschew hate speech and abuses. Qur’an 49:11 warns against the use of mockery, sarcasm and outright abuse by one tribe against another. Again, Qur’an 49:13 affirms that no single tribe or group of people is better than the other while Muhammad (SAW) the Prophet of Peace posited that mankind is all one.”
